Breeding behaviour for juice quality through selfing and progeny evaluation in hybrid clones and inbred derivatives of sugarcane (Saccharum sp.)

Abstract

Selfs of commercial clones, interspecific hybrids and their selfs, numbering 27, were evaluated for juice quality based on H.R.Brix in the first clonal trial. Commercial hybrids and their selfs produced a higher proportion of high quality progenies compared to interspecific hybrids and their selfs in line with the parental behaviour. Parent-progeny regression analysis explained 67 % of the variation by linearity indicating a high level of heritability of the trait. In general, a wide range of Brix was observed among the selfs, except in those of the top three parental clones for juice quality, which also did not produce any inferior progenies, indicating their high levels of homogeneity and concentration of sucrose genes in them. Inbreds of Co 1148 were more variable even after four generations of selfing in contrast to the third generation inbreds of Co 775. The efficiency of selfing in assessing the parental potential in sugarcane was revealed from this study, that, good parental clones for quality would be those with high juice quality that would yield selfs with high mean values, low SD and narrow range as observed in the case of CoC 671, Co 93020, 775-2-16 and 7201-157. Utilization of such clones in breeding would benefit quality improvement programme in sugarcane.